The Really Right Stuff L-bracket for the Sony alpha 7R arrived yesterday. You can order just the bottom plate. You can order just the vertical bracket, though you can’t do anything useful with it unless you have the bottom plate. Or you can order the pair together, and save a few bucks over buying them separately.
The bottom plate is really well designed. It makes good contact all the way around the camera’s base, once the camera is modified slightly. I’m indebted to Joe Holmes for this suggestion: peel off the UL-approved label on the bottom of the US-version of the camera, and remove any remaining adhesive (you can use a solvent, but I just used my thumbnail) before attaching the bottom plate. Now you’ve got better contact between the plate and the camera.
The bottom plate mounts with a ¼ inch screw that goes into the tripod hole on the bottom of the camera. Like they did with the M240 plate, RRS supplies a screw with a fold-down loop so you can tighten it without using tools. I don’t recommend this. Instead, take the supplied Allen wrench, and get the screw reasonably tight. You won’t be able to remove it without tools, but, unlike the M240, you won’t need to; the battery compartment is easily accessible through an opening in the bottom plate, and the SD card door is not interfered with at all.
Before you mount the bottom plate, you’ll have to decide whether or not you want to use the vertical bracket, since the same screw that attached the bottom plate holds the vertical piece into position. I’m not as impressed with the vertical attachment as I am with the bottom plate. The biggest problem I see is that it doesn’t contact the side of the camera at all; it’s cantilevered off the bottom plate. This means that there’s a vibration mode possible where the corner of the vertical part acts like a leaf spring. Whether or not my theoretical objection to this design is warranted will require testing, and that testing will be made more difficult since, as we’ve seen in earlier testing, the camera almost always vibrates more in portrait than in landscape mode.
Anyway, it looks a lot more effective and convenient than the generic plate I have been using.
Jim,
Thanks for sharing! Just wondering, does the bracket limit the downward tilt movement of the camera LCD?
Samuel, it essentially eliminates it. No loss to me, but I’m sure it will be to some.
The vertical piece, should you use it, makes it difficult, but not impossible, to pull up the bottom of the LCD panel, which is something I do a lot.
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for the confirmation. I do not have the RRS bracket in hand. I was at first looking only at the pictures on Really Right Stuff’s website, for both the horizontal and vertical plate. I just though to look at the horizontal plate only, and found a photo showing the maximum downward tilt with the plate attached. It looks to be about 10 degrees. So it is not totally eliminated, but you’ll have to pull it over the protruding back part of the plate before tilting it downwards, I think. In case you’ll ever need it!
http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/zoom-rrsweb-8-BA7-Screen-Tilt-Sony-A7-QR-plate-8BIT-1.png
Samuel, you are correct. I never thought to pull it out. In the infrequent times when I’d used it without the RRS bracket, I just pulled on the top.
Thanks very much Jim. The easiest way to remove many instances of residual adhesive is to take a piece of tape to it. For this case, 3M’s #810 Magic Tape works great. In some cases one needs to be careful about pulling coatings off, but not in this one, and this not only gives a very tidy result, quite easily, but it prevents any scratching or solvent damage. Sometimes I resort to using solvent, specifically PEC-12 film cleaner and sometimes PEC pads. It’s a less-dangerous solvent than many.
—Joseph Holmes
Thanks, Sam. I just got inspired to check out the max downward tilt angle carefully. Off the tripod, on the RRS L-plate, the A7R screen can tilt down by 19 degrees. On the tripod, using an RRS PCL-1 clamp, it can tilt by just under 15 degrees. Both better than I had thought. Indeed you do have to start off by pulling it out at the bottom.
—Joseph Holmes